Starting Cultivation in Wasteland

The luxury Starship slowly descended onto Forward Star, and the noble guests who had been partying for days and nights disembarked.

As they left the Star Port, they followed the usual VIP passage, and no one checked them.

Qu Jianlei and the other two walked out. Celestial Sound’s expression was a little dazed. "Central Star... I haven’t been here in so many years."

"I’ve never been here at all," Mu Yu replied casually. "Let’s go, shopping first!"

They had come here to kill, but that didn’t affect their shopping mood in the slightest.

After they finished shopping, Qu Jianlei’s expression turned a bit strange. "Everyone’s... run!"

It was actually normal. The slaughter on Qingsha Star had already been shocking enough, and the clan extermination tragedy on Sharp Claw Star was even more brutal.

Strictly speaking, Qian Cengxue’s family members had not been completely slaughtered; quite a few people had survived by hiding in military camps or other places.

But the people in the old residence had all died overnight, and someone had even set a big fire; that really scared these people senseless.

Hatred as an emotion is similar to jealousy; when the difference in strength isn’t too great, it will ravenously devour people’s hearts.

But when the gap in strength grows so large that it leads to despair, there’s simply no soil for such emotions to sprout.

Celestial Sound was also a peerless talent of her generation. Even though she hadn’t yet grown to her full potential, having gone smoothly all along, she did carry some arrogance.

But faced with the mighty Wanhao, she couldn’t even raise the thought of avenging her uncle; all she thought about was how to escape.

Qian Cengxue’s family members were the same. Even their strongest Supreme had fallen, and their bond with Wanhao had been severed.

In such a situation, this once very powerful clan’s cliff-like plunge was inevitable.

At first everyone still had the idea of banding together for self-preservation, of getting through this crisis first, but... the old residence had been massacred!

Then there was nothing more to say. Save yourselves first; those who could run would run, and those who couldn’t would hide as well as they could!

Back when the Laval Clan was wiped out, they had still been able to gather and make a fuss, because they had an A-level who was Balrog Supreme’s student.

That was a backbone to rally around; without a core figure to lead them, all they could do was scatter like birds and beasts.

Even Qian Cengxue’s own family had been scared into this state; those Wanhao members with no blood ties would only be even more frightened out of their wits.

Celestial Sound raised her brows slightly and murmured in a low voice, "Wasn’t it supposed to be militarized management?"

Mu Yu replied carelessly, "Even real armies break and rout sometimes, let alone this kind of small fry?"

"This is kind of boring," Qu Jianlei muttered. "Are we still going to chase them across the Star Realm?"

He did somewhat want to go back to Paradise, but he still had to take Celestial Sound’s feelings into account.

"Let’s go back," Celestial Sound answered in a low voice. "We’ve killed enough people this time."

Mu Yu glanced at her, and asked curiously, "You don’t plan on wiping out all your enemies?"

"There’s no rush with this; we can take it slow," Celestial Sound replied calmly. "Their Spirit is already gone; there’s no need to take them so seriously anymore."

Compared to before coming to Sirius, the knot of gloom between her brows had already lessened a lot.

"As for those few main culprits, we’ll see how things go. As for the other lackeys, it won’t be too late to deal with them after I become Supreme."

Qu Jianlei also gave her a look. "And the Qingsha Government... you don’t have any thoughts about them?"

"The information hasn’t been confirmed yet," Celestial Sound answered very casually. "And besides, we’ll see whether they go looking for death themselves in what they do next."

Her balefulness ultimately wasn’t that heavy; she didn’t factor in the Government side all that much—even though those people had also acted out of self-interest.

"Then we’ll hang around for another two days and head back," Qu Jianlei made the decision.

In fact, they didn’t even stay for two days; they left the following night.

Three days later, a raging fire broke out at Wanhao’s now-deserted base, with no casualties.

But that already said enough. The revenge from Lord Kong Se was far from over.

While Forward Star was conducting searches for suspects everywhere, Qu Jianlei and the other two had already set out on their journey home.

Half a month later, they arrived at Homeland Star, and then headed on to Paradise Star.

The best piece of news was this: Bentley and Claire had returned two days earlier.

When Qu Jianlei arrived at Yunwu Mountain, the two of them were in the Array cultivating.

After all, they had been away for more than a year, and there was simply no way to cultivate on the Starship.

Qu Jianlei didn’t disturb them; instead, he asked about the unified planning for the tourist zone.

As expected, just over half a month ago, Wanhao’s people had all withdrawn overnight.

With three of the group’s five Supremes gone, it was hard to say whether the headquarters would dissolve; a comprehensive contraction of the group’s other businesses was inevitable.

What caught Qu Jianlei slightly by surprise was that although Wanhao had withdrawn, the unified management plan for the tourist zone had not been terminated.

The operator had changed to another company. Clearly the project was already more than half done, and abandoning it now would have been a pity.

It’s just as they say—man dies for wealth, birds for food; as long as there’s profit, there will be people unafraid of death charging forward.

Thankfully, the company taking over also knew they weren’t to be trifled with, and took the initiative to come to Xiang Xue and pay a visit.

The other party stated that they would not bring the guesthouses under unified management, and that in the relevant tourist information, they would not set up barriers.

But that was as far as it went. In their words: since the guesthouses weren’t under unified management, it wouldn’t be convenient to heavily promote them.

Otherwise it would be a bit too unfair to those places that had accepted unified management.

Bluntly put, one’s a biological son, the other’s an uncontrollable neighbor. Them handling it this way is perfectly normal.

Besides their little guesthouse, there were a few other troublemakers whose land hadn’t been requisitioned, and they got the same treatment.

In short, the new owner didn’t keep pressing hard, but they treated all the troublemakers exactly the same.

Xiang Xue didn’t get any special preferential treatment, even with a Supreme sitting in the guesthouse.

The Paranoid wasn’t angry about it; it really wasn’t worth getting worked up over.

He just said, half laughing and half crying, "Their vision’s still too small. If they really gave us some dry shares, wouldn’t that make them our backing?"

"Forget it," Qu Jianlei wasn’t in the mood to fuss, either. "This reaction shows no one suspects we were the ones who went after the Marriott."

If the new owner could actually be sure it was the guesthouse crowd who hit the Marriott, no way in hell would they dare operate like this.

—Actually, they wouldn’t even need to be sure. Even just suspecting it, there’s no way they’d be this dismissive of the guesthouse.

Of course, to Qu Jianlei, this didn’t really matter. "How’s the recent income?"

"Peak season’s almost over," Xiang Xue answered gloomily. "It’s only half of what we made in the same period last year."

Qu Jianlei nodded, then asked if it was because they hadn’t done any traffic‑boosting.

On that point, Xiang Xue wasn’t sure either. Anyway, in all the new travel guides, the guesthouse’s ranking is at the bottom.

Plus the City Guard’s earlier quarantine and control hit the guesthouse’s reputation hard, and it still hasn’t fully recovered.

Speaking of this, Xiang Xue said dejectedly, "Anyway, how big the impact really is—we’ll have to wait till next year to see."

That was the news about the guesthouse. After the three—Qu Jianlei and the others—left, everyone kept in touch with Shanshui Small Building on Purple Star.

Not through interstellar comms, but copying the boss’s method... using courier.

There was just no other way; who doesn’t know interstellar comms are convenient? The problem is, there are too many people who can’t afford to be seen.

Granny Jia sent a reply by courier too, saying everything on Purple Star was fine, everyone shouldn’t worry.

The old lady handles things with zero leaks. Even if encrypted files are very reliable, she still won’t explain much, just sums it up with "don’t worry."

She didn’t even mention Qinghu’s situation.

But the Paranoid could taste the meaning in that—if she didn’t say anything, it naturally meant nothing was wrong.

In other words: if something happened to Qinghu, would Jia Shuqing really not tell the family?

"Then that’s as good as it gets," Qu Jianlei nodded when he heard this. "If there’s nothing else, I’m going to be busy for a while."

"Busy with what?" The Paranoid’s eyes lit up instantly. "I’ve been suffocating these past weeks!"

He’d never been the rule‑abiding type, and he’d never played nanny for anyone—unless you count Mu Yu.

Sitting in the guesthouse holding the fort these days really didn’t suit him, but he couldn’t just abandon his post either.

The five Supremes in the team were split across three locations, and Paradise Star was the one place with only him as a Supreme. He couldn’t sneak off even if he wanted to.

Qu Jianlei glanced at him. "Going to test near‑Earth jumps. Lately I’ve felt that thing is getting more and more important."

That wasn’t an excuse. If they managed to build a powerful enough Long-distance Teleportation Array, what kind of effect would it have on this Sirius trip?

Start the action on Qingsha Star, then teleport straight to Sharp Claw Star, then on to Forward Star!

They wouldn’t even wait for the other side to react before they’d already gone on a killing spree. Where would there be any chance to run?

Too bad the Teleportation Array was still a long way from being perfected.

Worse still, the huge computer cluster capable of high‑intensity calculations wasn’t currently at hand!

But even so, that’s no reason to give up trying, right?

"I’ll go with you..." The Paranoid had just said half of that when he noticed a pair of eyes next to him glaring viciously over.

Mu Yu spoke in a chilling voice, "You knew I was back, so now you’re leaving?"

"I... that’s not what I meant," the Paranoid spread his hands, helpless. "I just want to move around a bit!"

"You’re not going!" Mu Yu declared high‑handedly. "Testing that thing is very dangerous!"

The Paranoid wanted to argue more, then suddenly remembered: his junior has a deep‑rooted fear of space!

So he could only sulk and shut up.

Once Qu Jianlei left, he vanished again for two whole months, until the Paranoid had the Little Lake call him back.

On the fifth day after the call was sent, Qu Jianlei hurried back. "I’m right at a critical point. What’s going on?"

There really was new intel. Jia Shuqing sent word from Purple Pool: the Energy Stone Ore mining application Ping’an filed has been approved.

The paperwork for opening an Energy Stone Ore mine in the Imperial system is legendarily hard to get—software to hardware, if you’re missing anything, forget it.

Dig this stuff up and it’s straight money, even more hard currency than Gold—just think about petrodollars.

Jia Shuqing herself had no idea how Ping’an managed to get it approved.

But how to put it... she wasn’t very interested in these mundane matters, and had no interest in finding out how it was done.

However, Duoduo had already told her: when the Government comes to pin down the mining site, we’d better call in a few more Supremes to sit in.

There’s no helping it; Energy Stone Ore is just that sensitive. If you don’t show some mine‑guarding muscle, it’s all too easy to get swallowed whole, bones and skin and all.